Balancing Preservation with Development

This article first appeared in the September 2004 issue of BreakPoint WorldView magazine. Subscribe today or get a gift subscription for someone else! Call 1-877-322-5527.

The Day After Tomorrow, 20th Century Fox’s big-budget summer 2004 movie, made a media splash on its Memorial Day opening last year and has since rolled up more than $500 million in worldwide ticket sales. Now the all-time environmental-themed box-office champ, the $125 million film spins a story of worldwide disaster brought about by global warming and severe climate change. The “stars” of the movie are the hilariously improbable special effects, which feature tidal waves, creeping ice caps, and scores of tornadoes rolling through big cities.

One critic blasted the movie as “Ecozilla” and warned that the story “dramatizes its faith that Earth is better off without man; we have it coming.” Unfortunately, some environmentalists have problems separating reality from what comes out of the Hollywood dream factories. Many, including religious groups, were hoping that Day After Tomorrow would mobilize legions of converts to their cause. And no wonder. The rhetoric and spin employed by environmentalists have for years predicted a future that could only happen on a movie set.

Case in point: The Eco-Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches (NCC) has launched a lobbying campaign to revive what is familiarly know as the Climate Stewardship Act, legislation which has been stalled in the U.S. Senate since October 2003. In an open letter to U.S.Senators, titled “An Interfaith Call for Climate Justice,” NCC religious leaders vigorously engage in a bit of over-the-top fear mongering.

Citing previous statements from the past few years, the religious leaders write, “Global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase average temperatures by 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit into the next century—bringing rising seas, weather and agricultural disruptions, floods, refugees, migrating diseases and other dislocations which most harm the planet’s poor and vulnerable.”

These projections are linked in large part to a view of environmental stewardship that characterizes humans primarily as polluters and consumers rather than creative producers. The NCC writes, “collectively, we have a clear moral obligation and urgency to protect human life, human health, and all of creation.” While this statement is true as far as it goes, it does not represent an adequate or comprehensive understanding of stewardship.

The Climate Stewardship Act—a bipartisan bill supported by Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)—was introduced in January 2003 as a means of combating what the sponsors believe to be a clear trend toward global warming. But the bill (S.139, amended SA.2028), is based on questionable science and inadequate economic sensibilities.

FINDING A FRAMEWORK
How do we weigh the various scenarios of environmental disaster and cataclysm which have become so commonplace? The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, signed by thousands of people of faith and others of goodwill, including Charles Colson, articulates an excellent framework for assessing these claims. The declaration notes that “while some environmental concerns are well founded and serious, others are without foundation or greatly exaggerated.” Fears about “destructive manmade global warming,” for example, are found to be among a group of “unfounded or undue concerns,” which also includes fears of overpopulation and rampant species loss.

The declaration highlights five major and substantive differences that help us discern the “real” from the “merely alleged” threats:

Keeping this framework in mind, we can see that the rhetoric and argumentation of the global warming doomsayers revolve around just such speculative and catastrophic claims. Doom and gloom fantasies may help sell movie tickets, but they are no substitute for sound policy making.

Having respect for God’s created order does not mean that the environment cannot and must not be used for the benefit of humankind; rather, a belief in the sanctity of life requires that we accept our responsibilities to have dominion over nature. These responsibilities are not simply to protect and preserve but, through human creativity and industry, to bring out all of the productive possibilities present in the natural world—that is, to create and develop.

Man’s survival and thriving depends on exercising responsible dominion over creation, tilling and keeping the Garden, owning property and transforming it to the betterment of the human condition, and always with an eye toward doing God’s will with the aim of human redemption. As the Cornwall Declaration states, “Human beings are called to be fruitful, to bring forth good things from the earth, to join with God in making provision for our temporal well being, and to enhance the beauty and fruitfulness of the rest of the earth. Our call to fruitfulness, therefore, is not contrary to but mutually complementary with our call to steward God’s gifts. This call implies a serious commitment to fostering the intellectual, moral, and religious habits and practices needed for free economies and genuine care for the environment.”

WHY KYOTO?
The promise of a free and prosperous economy is not the product of government restrictions, and measures such as the Climate Stewardship Act would significantly add to the regulatory and bureaucratic red-tape already imposed on domestic business. Part of the new law would require a study of the feasibility and economic impact of America’s adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. The United States government has been the target of relentless attacks from environmentalists for its refusal to ratify the treaty. But now other countries, most recently Russia, have begun to realize the serious economic implications of these strictures and have yet to ratify the Kyoto measures.

Indeed, the Kyoto Protocol is a stunning example of the Cornwall Declaration’s distinction between real and alleged environmental concerns. More and more nations are finally beginning to realize that ratification of Kyoto would be “unjustifiably costly and of dubious benefit.” A common feature of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Climate Stewardship Act is the almost reflexive move toward greater government regulation and intervention into various industries.

According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Climate Stewardship Act would have far-reaching implications, affecting electricity generation, transportation, industrial, and commercial economic sectors. The Energy Information Administration, in its latest analysis of the act, estimates that during the twenty-year period from 2004-2025, cumulative undiscounted actual GDP losses would amount to $776 billion (in 1996 dollars). The EIA based its projections on the less costly version of the bill, amended since its introduction in the Senate. While the Pew Centerfinds the EIA’s estimates of the projected cost of the Climate Stewardship Act to be “unrealistically high,” we should be no less concerned about the long-term economic impact of spurious governmental regulation.

The director of The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich, admits that his “secret dream is that this film will move politicians to act.” Former Vice President Al Gore has publicly advocated for the film in hopes of spurring political action. It is regrettable that some religious leaders have bought into this fictitious view of the future and its doomsday predictions. Before supporting such restrictive measures as the Climate Stewardship Act or the Kyoto Protocol, people of faith must beware the risk of falling prey to political agendas that would restrict economic advancement that would otherwise enhance human dignity.

SACRIFICING THE POOR
The problem of human dignity is most often overlooked by those of religious conviction who argue for things like the Climate Stewardship Act or the Kyoto Treaty. As the Cornwall Declaration states, “Public policies to combat exaggerated risks can dangerously delay or reverse the economic development necessary to improve not only human life but also human stewardship of the environment. The poor, who are most often citizens of developing nations, are often forced to suffer longer in poverty with its attendant high rates of malnutrition, disease, and mortality; as a consequence, they are often the most injured by such misguided, though well-intended, policies.”

A concrete example of such suffering and needless death is apparent in the crusade against the use of DDT. An environmental crusade against the use of DDT began with biologist and author Rachel Carson and has been continued and expanded by groups such as Health Care Without Harm (HCWH). To this day, the use of DDT is avoided around the world because of the stigma attached to it.

This is in spite of the fact that DDT is an effective pesticide which could largely curtail the malaria epidemic which afflicts developing nations, especially in Africa.

Newsman John Stossel writes, “Today DDT is rarely used. America’s demonization of it caused others to shun it. The U.S.government does spend your tax dollars fighting malaria in Africa, but it will not spend a penny on DDT. The result has been a huge resurgence of malaria. More than 50 million people have died—most children—since the U.S. banned DDT.” This is a clear example of an out-of-control ideological agenda undermining the importance and dignity of human life.

In large part, campaigns like the crusade against DDT depend on the cooperation of environmentalist groups and sympathetic media outlets to scare people off and forestall reasoned debate. According to Stossel, Amir Attaran, a scientist leading a campaign urging the use of DDT to fight malaria, says, “If it’s DDT, it must be awful. And that’s fine if you’re a rich, white environmentalist. It’s not so fine if you’re a poor black kid who’s about to lose his life from malaria.” Stossel also writes that the U.S. Agency for International Development “acknowledges DDT is safe as currently used, but won’t pay for it.”

Often, people of faith are complicit in these kinds of efforts. HCWH, for example, has gained sympathetic audiences among religious groups and counts the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, the Presbytery of New York, and the Catholic Health Association of the United States as members.

HCWH is currently on a mission very similar to that successfully carried out against DDT to ban the use of all vinyl-based medical products because of a slight theoretical risk for very select and particularly vulnerable populations of patients. Instead of working towards rational solution (limiting the exposure of these patient groups to vinyl products), HCWH is bent on their “quest to eliminate” all vinyl products, despite their many positive uses in health care.

The common thread between the issues of global warming, DDT, and vinyl is the consistent disregard for the importance of human life in pursuit of an ideological agenda. Too often the poor and the sick have been ignored in the blind drive for environmental purity.

The material prosperity that flows from free enterprise cannot save our souls. But neither can government restrictions on economic production or undue restrictions on life-saving technologies. This much we can say: Free enterprise leads to a thriving human community while a growing and sometimes misguided burden of regulations and restrictions too often impedes the creativity of the human spirit.

The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, along with a list of notable signatories, is also available from the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship.

Rev. Robert A. Sirico, a Wilberforce Forum fellow, is president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty.